Contemporary

Bernadette of Lourdes – Paintings by Greg Tricker

By Philip Vann and Sister Wendy Becket

Greg Tricker is a stone carver and painter. His profound and simple style of painting is deeply rooted in a mystical tradition of art. Qualities of myth, an innocence of spirit akin to the folk art tradition and a powerfully theatrical element feature in his work.

This inspiring collection of over 50 of his paintings and stone carvings portrays the suffering, joy and innocence of St Bernadette, a poor shepherdess who had miraculous visitations from the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in 1858. These visionary paintings present a radical new image of St Bernadette and Mary in the mystery of their poignantly close relationship amid the vibrant forces of nature, all infused by the Divine Spirit. Philip Vann explores the background to these at once iconic, earthy, graceful and redemptive paintings, placing the work in the wider context of both the artist’s life and the mystical path. Sister Wendy Becket, who describes Tricker as “a deep painter, somebody possessed by a vision of holiness”, provides a foreword.

Greg Tricker has produced a number of themed books and exhibitions, notably Paintings for Anne Frank (exhibited at Peterborough Cathedral and St Clement Danes, London), The Catacombs, Francis of Assisi (exhibited at Salisbury Cathedral and Piano Nobile Gallery, London), and recently The Life of Kaspar Hauser (2006).

Philip Vann is the author of Face to Face: British Self-Portraits in the Twentieth Century, a monograph on the artist Dora Holzhandler, and recent books on the painters William Crozier and Joash Woodrow.

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Accompanying a unique exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, of the work of Nicolas Poussin and Cy Twombly, who sadly died on 5 July this year, this book is "so unusual and its theme so enduringly relevant, especially now, that it truly should not be missed" (The Spectator). More

Celebrated for his unprecedented monumental steel sculptures and for his radical approach to drawing, Richard Serra is one of the most important and revered artists working today. This accompanies the first museum exhibition of Serra’s most recent drawings, which mark an exciting new departure for the artist. Made using thick black pigment applied to both sides of a clear plastic sheet, these drawings, which he calls ‘transparencies’, are extraordinary objects that challenge preconceptions of what constitutes a drawing. More

Art in the Age of Terrorism tackles one of the most difficult topics imaginable - a war that is quintessentially postmodern in its decentred identity, globalized character and confused conflict of cultures. In this book both artists and arts theorists explore in a series of essays the various ways in which art can help articulate the zone of grey that lies behind the black and white term 'terrorism'. More

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